"Where does it say that you have a contract with G-d to have an easy life?"

the Lubavitcher Rebbe

"Failure is not the enemy of success; it is its prerequisite."

Rabbi Nosson Scherman

24 Mar 2013

Repentance and giving thanks

Kikar Hashabat writes about an interview in which Baoz Mauda, winner of the fifth season of Israeli TV program 'Star is Born' and Israel's representative to the Eurovision 2008, speaks about starting to observe mitzvot.

Speaking about the Creator, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Safran has a fantastic article about Hakarat Hatov and the Dayeinu prayer.

Dayeinu is the primary Pesach lesson of hakarat hatov. It teaches us to focus on what we have – and to be grateful – because God owes us nothing, but has given us so much. Therefore, when God favors us with His mercy and goodness, we need to immediately express our gratitude to Him. On Pesach our gratitude takes the form of Dayeinu. Once the heart of the Haggadah's text revealing all of the miracles and wonders of Yetziat Mitzrayim have been retold, it is natural for the mokir tov to express hakarat hatov.

We recount each of the fifteen acts of Divine kindnesses, each of which would have been enough to warrant our hakarat hatovtot by itself! Dayeinu. Each of these kindnesses would have been enough. But fifteen! Emet expects and even demands that chesed will beget chesed, even though God derived joy by bringing us out of Egypt . . . by giving us their wealth, dividing the sea, leading us through dry land, providing for our needs in the wilderness, feeding us with manna, giving us the Shabbat, bringing us before Mount Sinai . . . We therefore follow our verbal expression of hakarat hatov, Dayeinu!

Ultimately, dayeinu,every taker must become a giver, a giver with pure heart and cheerful spirit. That is hakarat hatov. And our ultimate hakarat hatov response to God is manifested through our fulfillment of His mitzvot.